MGMT 642: Agile Project Management

MGMT 642: Agile Project Management

Week 5
Outline
• Planning Objectives and Drivers
• Scheduling Objectives and Rhythm
• Activity: Planning and Scheduling
• Agile Project Management Methodologies
• Assignments

3 2023-08-13
Planning Objectives and Drivers
Principles for Agile Planning
• Plan at multiple level
• Engage the team and the customer in planning
• Manage expectation by frequently demonstrating progress
• Tailor processes to the project’s characteristics
• Update the plan based on the project priorities
• Ensure encompassing estimate that account for risk, distraction and
team availability
• Use appropriate estimate ranges to reflect the level of uncertainty
• Base projection based on completion rates
• Factor diversions and outside work
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Driver in Agile Planning = “Value”
• The driver in agile Planning is based on “value”
• Agile planning is focused on delivering “value”:
• Without defining what that is = No upfront scoping
• When a particular “value” will be delivered = No
upfront scheduling
• Agile project delivers viable set of “values”
• By a particular date = Timeboxed project duration
• For a pre-approved budget = Fixed budget
• Scope = Value

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Agile Planning Objectives and Results
• OKR (Objectives and Key Results) (Filipe Castro explained what it is)
• Goal setting framework adopted by Silicon Valley companies (Google, Twitter,
LinkedIn)
• Complement Agile and Lean
• Agile approach for setting goals and measuring value
• Evolution from Agile Manifesto
• Agile Manifesto focuses on output = Delivering features
• OKR focuses on outcomes = Delivering Results
• Both are based on the value-driven delivery!

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OKR (Objectives and Key Results)
• Objectives are NOT the deliverables
• They are the beneficial outcomes (‘value’) the deliverables will
produce
• There need only be a few (e.g. 3-5) at most, with 1-3 key results per
objective
• Objectives should be shared with the team and stakeholders
• Value = Agile team’s planning drivers
• OKR = Agile team’s planning objectives providing guidance

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Example of OKR
• Medical imaging solution:
1) Display the first image in under 3 seconds on any hospital
computer.
2) 99.99% availability measured monthly. Monthly fees waived if
cumulative downtime exceeds ~ 5 minutes per month.
3) All images on-line all the time, no tiered access for older images

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Scheduling Objectives and Rhythm
Four Main Agile Ceremonies
• Agile ceremonies: Envisioning
1) Iteration Planning Release plan
Product backlog
Plan iteration
2) Daily Stand-Up
3) Iteration Review Iteration
1 to 4
4) Iteration Deliver Iteration review weeks Develop
product
Stand-up
increments and retrospective meetings
Retrospective increment 24
hours

Artifact
1

updates

Releases

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Scheduling Objectives and Rhythm
• While each ceremony is different, they:
• Facilitate the same overall schedule objectives.
• Ceremonies Bring Agile Team Together
• With a common Iteration Goal
• Under a regular schedule rhythm
• The rhythm refers to the 8th principle behind the agile manifesto
• 8) Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users
should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
• Help the agile team get things done.

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Why are Agile Ceremonies Important?
• With agile ceremonies, the agile team can benefit from:
• Enhanced ability to manage changing priorities
• Acceleration of product increment
• Increase in team productivity
• Improved business and product development alignment

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Iteration Planning
• In Sprint Planning the Product Owner works with the Team to negotiate what Backlog Items the
Team will agree to do in the Sprint in order to support the Release Goals and Strategy.
• Each of these Items has an agreed-upon Definition of Done, and collectively these Items are called
the Team's Sprint Backlog.
• It is the ScrumMaster's responsibility to assure that the Team agrees to a realistic amount of work,
and the Product Owner does not unduly influence this agreement.
• After agreeing to the Items the Team can do, the Team and the Product Owner jointly agree to a
single Sprint Goal that defines Success for the Sprint, and the Product Owner advertises this Sprint
Goal to the Stakeholders.
• The team might have to try out different approaches, so their plans are likely to have a high
likelihood of changes.

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Iteration Planning Activities
• Pre-planning meeting (Iteration 0 or Kick-off meeting)
• 1st iteration of the project.
• Validate scope and vision.
• Identify stories backlog items for the iteration.
• Form and socialize the team and determine needs to physical and technical
environments.
• 3 goals:
1) Place some quality items on the Product Backlog.
2) Create a minimal environment dedicated to the writing of quality code.
3) Write a piece of real code, no matter how small.

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Iteration Planning Activities Continued
• Pre-planning meeting (Iteration 0 or Kick-off meeting) Continued
• And, make this Sprint Zero as short as possible - Can be as short as one week,
which is what I recommend.
• So what does the Sprint Zero actually look like?
• It's a week long or you can elect to keep the duration consistent with the subsequent iterations.
• If you assume that it’s a week:
• The Team spends half a day Planning and half a day with the Review and Retrospective at the end.
• This leave s four days for actual work.
• In two roughly parallel tracks, the Team spends two days setting up the environments, and two day
getting the Product Backlog together.
• Then, the Team will choose the Story to actually implement.
• Then it will get it Done.
• This takes a day or so, leaving the Team almost a day of float.

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Iteration Planning Activities Continued
• Time-boxed for 2-4 hours.
• Iteration Planning Meeting Part 1
• Develop an iteration goal.
• Product Owner prioritizes the stories and answers questions regarding acceptance criteria.
• Or better yet, the stories are already prioritized prior to this meeting.
• Team will provide more detailed estimates and together decide which stories to do in the
upcoming iteration based on the capacity.
• Iteration Planning Meeting Part 2
• The team without Product Owner present, will break the stories into tasks.
• Task:
• All the activities needed in order to complete the Story.
• They are estimated in ideal time, which is how long a task will take without interruptions or impediments.

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Daily Planning Activities
• The Daily Scrum (Stand-up)
• 3 questions:
• 1. What have you done since the last Daily Scrum?
• 2. What are you going to do until the next Daily Scrum?
• 3. What impediments are standing in your way?
• Time-boxed for about 15 minutes.
• Other Discussion
• Any other discussions needed to resolve the impediments can happen after
this meeting for 15 minutes with the people that are needed.

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Iteration Review Activities
• Review/Demo is a meeting for the purpose of obtaining feedback and adapting in
order to add value.
• On the last day of the iteration, plan for 2-4 hours of review/demo to the
stakeholders.
• Reviews are formal sign-off/demo meetings to discuss what was planned and
what was accomplished.
• Completed stories are shown with the demo.
• Incomplete stories are moved to the backlog.
• Any valid feedback may become new/revised stories that move to the backlog.

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Iteration Retrospective Activities
• Attendance is limited to the Cross-functional team members, Product owner, and
Team facilitator.
• On the last day of the iteration, plan for 2-4 hours of retrospective after the
Iteration Review.
• This is very similar to Lessons Learned.
• A retrospective is not about blame; it is a time for the team to learn from previous
work and make small improvements.
• This is not about the actual product deficiencies.
• Look at the qualitative (people’s feelings) and quantitative (measurements) data.
• The team may end up with items to be added to the backlog.

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Release Sprint
• At the Sprint Review, the Sales Manager says, "That looks good! I can sell the heck out of that. Ship that
puppy!'. Here is a list of things she might be expecting to see once the system is shipped.
• The Product is available to users.
• Marketing has materials and the marketing plan is implemented.
• Sales is able to sell the new version.
• The upcoming Sprint should be a Release Sprint.
• What sort of things does the Team do in this Release Sprint?
• Plug those holes and fix those defects.
• Finish User Documentation.
• Finish Maintenance Documentation.
• Finish Training Materials.
• Support Marketing and Sales as they finish their documentation and materials.
• Train the Help Desk to support the new system, and finish any documentation they may need.
• Other stuff - it's up to the Team...
• Must realize that the Release Sprint is not about addition functionality.
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Activity: Planning and Scheduling
Role Play: Iteration Planning (10 mins)
• Product Owner, ScrumMaster, and Cross-functional Team

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Agile Project Management Methodologies
Why use Agile Methods?
• Adaptability to changing market/customer
needs
• Better cost efficiencies and fastest time-to-
market
• Improved product quality, customer
satisfaction, and increased project control and
success
• Value-driven delivery
• Risk reduction
• Faster Return On Investment (ROI)

Agile Manifesto (2001). Manifesto for agile software development, from http://www.agilemanifesto.org

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Types of Agile Methods
• Crystal Methods and Scrum 1st Agile Methods
Highsmith, J.A. (2002). Agile software development ecosystems. Boston, MA:
• XP (eXtreme Programming) swept the globe by 2002 Addison-Wesley.
• Scrum / XP are popular

• In October 2010 PMI announced that agile project management practices and skills had a place in every PM’s
took kit.
• In May 2011 PMI announced the new Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) certification
• PMI-ACP takes best practices from many different Agile methodologies.
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Agile is a Blanket Term for Many
Approaches
• What about Lean and the Kanban Method?
• One way to think about relationship between lean, agile and the Kanban Method is to consider agile and the Kanban
Method as descendants of lean thinking.
• In other words, lean thinking is a superset, sharing attributes with agile and Kanban.
• This shared heritage is very similar and focuses on delivering value, respect for people, minimizing waste, being
transparent, adapting to change, and continuously improving.
• Project teams sometimes find it useful to blend various methods.

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From A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 6th Edition (2017)
Agile Approaches Plotted by Breadth and
Detail

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Project Management Institute, Agile Practice Guide, Project Management Institute Inc., 2017
Continuum of agile approaches

More predictive More agile

RUP Crystal Scrum Lean

Waterfall
AUP XP (TDD-BDD) FDD Kanban
DA
DSDM

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Lean
• First person to truly integrate Lean into • Based on:
manufacturing was Henry Ford in 1913. • Minimal waste
• Kiichiro Toyoda extensively used it in the Toyota • Maximize value
Production System in 1930s. • 8 types of Waste
• Though process of lean was thoroughly • Injuries
describe for the first in the book “The Machine • Defects
That Changed World” by James Womack in • Inventory
1990 and then “Lean Thinking” by James • Overproduction
Womack in 1996.
• Waiting time
• Lean agile project Management • Motion
• We need to eliminate the processes not providing any • Transportation
business value
• Processing

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Lean Continued
• 5 Key Principles
1. Value:
• What’s important to the customer
• What the customer is willing to pay for
2. Value Stream
• Actions required to bring a product through 3 critical tasks
• 1) Problem Solving task (design, engineering),
• 2) Information Management task (order taking, scheduling, planning),
• 3) Physical Transformation task (from raw material to finished product)
3. Flow:
• Upstream (e.g. manufacturer); Downstream (e.g. customer)
• Parts (e.g. materials, customer’s needs) “flow” through a Value Stream
4. Pull:
Lean Project Management, from Lumeer
• Customer “pull” the goods they need, in the amount and at the time they need them
• Nothing is produced by the upstream provider until the downstream customer signals a need
5. Perfection
• The complete elimination of all waste, so that all activities along a value stream add value to the product
• Ideal State Map
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Lean Continued
• Lean Tools
• Value Stream Analysis: • Cells:
• Break down the Value Stream in manageable • Natural groups of parts or steps that add value
sections (maps) to a product
• Communicate the “flow” with maps • Standard Work:
• What the customer is willing to pay for • Everyone knows what they are supposed to do
• 6S: at any moment in time
• Second step, after Value Stream Analysis • Rapid Improvement Events
• A tool to organize the workplace • A seven week cycle of preparation, action, and
• Sort: Keep what you need, get rid of the rest follow-up to improve one area or fix a problem
• Straighten: organize what’s left
• Scrub: A clean workplace is more efficient
• Safety: Without our people, nothing gets done
• Standardize: Find a best way and have everyone
do it that way
• Sustain: Don’t let us

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Scrum
• Created by Jeff Sutherland at Easel in 1993
• Has 5 principles 3 legs/pillars of the empirical process, 5 values, 3 core roles, 1 ancillary role, 6 ceremonies, 3 artifacts, etc.

• Roles
• Product Owner
• The Team
• ScrumMaster

• Ceremonies
• Sprint Planning
• Sprint
• Daily Scrum Standup
• Sprint Review
• Sprint Retrospective
• Backlog Refinement

• Artifacts
• Product Backlog
• Sprint Backlog
• Increments

• Iteration = Sprints (1-4 weeks) (Small 1-2 and large 3-4 weeks) Scrum Framework © 2020 Scrum.org
• Sprint is of fixed length (timebox of up to a calendar month)
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XP (eXtreme Programming)
• Created by Kent Beck at Chrysler in 1999
• Has 28 practices, 7 roles and 7 work products
• Agile methodology intended to improve software quality and responsiveness to changing customer
requirements.
• It advocates frequent "releases" in short development cycles (timeboxing).
• Pair programming, extensive code reviews, frequent communication with the customer.
• Popularized pair programming and test-driven development

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XP (eXtreme Programming) Continued
• Pros
• Lowers the cost of changes through quick change of new requirements.
• Most of design activity can be done on the fly.
• Cons
• Scope creep
• Needs pair programming
• Customer Service Representative (CSR) is attached to the project.

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Kanban
• Kanban (signboard or billboard in Japanese) • Kanban is one method to achieve JIT.
• Inspired by the original lean-manufacturing system. • Main idea of Kanban is to make sure the Team doesn’t
agree to do work until it is actually ready to start the work
• Taiichi Ohno, an industrial engineer at Toyota, or until there is work to do next.
developed Kanban to improve manufacturing
• There are collection of work that are actually being worked
efficiency in the mid-2000s. on all members at the same time.
• Scheduling system for Lean Manufacturing and Just- • A member is actively working on the work but just one at a
In-Time manufacturing (JIT) time. When the work is finished, he/she will be available to
take on additional work but it is not planned until he/she is
• The JIT is an inventory strategy where materials are available.
only ordered and received as they are needed in the
production process. The goal of this method is to • Kanban can be displayed in the Information radiator (as
reduce costs by saving money on overhead inventory part of providing visual information-communication tool)
expenses. • Timeboxes are not used in Kanban

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Kanban Continued
• Example Kanban board
• Work In Progress (WIP) limit

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Project Management Institute, Agile Practice Guide, Project Management Institute Inc., 2017
Properties and Advantages of Kanban
• The workflow needs to be visualized
• The policies should be clear
• The collaborative environment should be
improved
• Work in progress should be limited
• It is the workflow we manage
• There should be feedback loops
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• Kanban reduces waste
• It increases efficiency, productivity and quality
• It attracts the team members focus on the work they
do
• It helps team members to focus on completed
deliverables
• It prevents team members from being overloaded
and provides a more homogenized workload
• It provides flexibility
Problems with excessive levels of Work in
Progress (WIP):
• WIP consumes investment capital and delivers no return on the
investment until it is converted into an accepted product.
• It represents money spent with no return, which is something we
want to limit.
• WIP hides bottlenecks in processes that slow overall workflow (or
throughput) and masks efficiency issues.
• WIP represents risk in the form of potential rework, since there may
still be changes to items until those items have been accepted.
• If there is a large inventory of WIP, there may in turn be a lot of scrap
or expensive rework if a change is required.
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Cumulative Flow Diagrams (CFDs)

From: PMI-ACP Exam Prep, Mike Griffiths (2015)

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Cumulative Flow Diagrams (CFDs) Continued
• Bottlenecks and the Theory of Constraints (TOC)
• The bottleneck is the activity that lies below the widening band.

• Five Focusing Steps of Goldratt's Theory of Constraints

• 1. Identify the constraint.
• 2. Exploit the constraint.
• 3. Subordinate all other processes to exploit the constraint.
• 4. If after steps 2 and 3 are done, more capacity is needed to meet demand, elevate the constraint.
• 5. If the constraint has not moved, go back to step 1, but don't let inertia (complacency) become the
system's constraint.

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 Crystal Clear
• Created by Alistair Cockburn in 1991
• Has 14 practices, 10 roles and 25 products
• Scalable family of techniques for critical systems
• Crystal is a group of methodologies designed to scale based on number of
people involved and criticality of the project

Cockburn. A (2002). Agile software development. Boston. MA: Addition-Wesley

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Project Management Institute, Agile Practice Guide, Project Management Institute Inc., 2017
Scrumban
• A hybrid approach using Scrum as a framework and Kanban for
process improvement.
• Work is organized into small sprints with stories (not tasks like Scrum)
placed on Kanban boards.
• Uses daily meetings for collaboration and removing impediments.
• No predefined roles.
• When WIP (Work In Progress) drops below a predetermined level,
more planning occurs.
• WIP has no value, only complete work does.

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FDD (Feature Driven Development)
• Created by Jeff De Luca at Nebulon in 1997
• Has 8 practices, 14 roles and 16 work products
• Uses object-oriented design and code inspections

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Palmer, S. R., & Felsing, J.M. (2002). A practical guide to feature driven development. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
DSDM (Dynamic Systems Development Method)
• Created by group of British firms in 1993
• 15 practices, 12 roles and 23 work products
• Non-proprietary RAD approach from early 1990

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Stapleton, J. (1997). DSDM: A framework for business centered development, Harlow, England: Addison-Wesley.
Agile Unified Process (AUP)
• AUP was developed by Scott Amber as the Agile version of the Rational Unified Process (RUP).
• It focuses on using a four-phased approach to incrementally delivery pre-product into staging
areas with collaboration from various disciplines.

Figure based on http://www.ambysoft.com/unifiedprocess/agileUP.html. Copyright 2005 by Scott W. Ambler

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Scaling Frameworks
• Scrum of Scrums (SoS):
• Also known as “Meta Scrum”, used for multiple active Scrum teams with a need to coordinate work.
• Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe):
• Focuses on providing a knowledge base of patterns for scaling work across all levels of the enterprise
• Scaling Frameworks: Large Scale Scrum (LeSS):
• A framework for organizing several development teams toward a common goal while retaining as much as possible of
the conventional single-team Scrum model.
• Enterprise Scrum:
• A framework to apply Scrum to a holistic organizational level.
• Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD)
• DAE: Frameworks for enterprise functions (e.g. marketing, sales, finance, procurement, etc.)
• DAIT: Frameworks for IT related frameworks (e.g. enterprise architecture, portfolio management, IT governance, etc.)
• DevOps: IT operations, build/deploy automation, CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment), data
management, change/release management
• DAD: Applying agile and/or lean technique across the enterprise

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Release Planning (Best Practice)
• Created by Kent Beck at Chrysler in 1998
• Lightweight project management framework
• Used for managing both XP and Scrum projects

Beck, K., & Fowler, M. (2004). Planning extreme programming. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Addison-Wesley.

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Release Planning Deliverables
• Used in both XP and Scrum
• Lightweight framework of Agile planning products
• Ranges from release plans down through unit tests

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Beck, K., & Fowler, M. (2004). Planning extreme programming. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Addison-Wesley.
Strengths & Weaknesses
• Some follow the Agile Manifesto better than others
• Some have more process and document formality
• Often mistakenly compared to traditional methods

50 2023-08-13 Coffin, R., & Lane, D. (2006). A practical guide to seven agile methodologies: Part 2, from
http://www.devx.com/architect/Article/32836/1954
Common Mistakes
• Agile methods require a measure of commitment
• Involve resources, training and compliance

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Sliger, M., & Broderick, S. (2008). The software project manager’s bridge to agility. Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Critical Success Factors

Chow, T., & Cao, D.B. (2008). A survey study of critical success factors in agile software projects. Journal of Systems and
Software, 81 (6), 961-971

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Agile Project Management
• Project management differs
for Agile methods
• Focuses on enhancing the
performance of teams
• Agile project management
is related to agile values

Augustine, S. (2005). Managing agile projects. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

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Predictive vs Incremental

From: https://softwaredevelopmenttoday.com/2015/09/how-to-explain-agile-and-incremental-delivery-to-anyone/

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Stacy Complexity Model
• Three characteristics to
consider to determine
uncertainty level:
• The final product
• The project work
• The processes

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Project Management Institute, Agile Practice Guide, Project Management Institute Inc., 2017
Traditional vs. Agile: Which One is Right for Your Project?
• Traditional vs Agile Which One is Right for Your Project.pdf

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Assignments
Homework Problem 5: Adaptive Planning
• Answer each question.
• Explain why and justify.
• Do NOT search the Internet.
• To be more consistent, please use below naming convention for your following
assignment:
• Homework5_[Last name]_[First letter of first name].pptx
• If file naming is not followed, there will be a grade deduction.
• Upload to the Homework section in Moodle.
• I will pick one group and the group will do 8-10 minute presentation at the start of the next
class.
• If you go under or over time, there will be a grade deduction.

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Homework Problem 5: Adaptive Planning
Continued
• Consider the following conversation snippets and indicate whether they are valid topics to discuss
at a stand-up meeting by placing a check mark in the appropriate column (Valid Topic vs. Invalid
Topic).
• "My PC still needs more RAM."
• "I finished testing the launcher."
• "I think we should add a turbo booster."
• "I just finished adding the supercharger."
• "Bill from accounting did not approve my trip to see the users."
• "Wendy from marketing won't go on a date with me."
• "I am still stuck trying to attach the nose cone."
• "If you thread it backwards, the nose cone should go on easily."

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Assignments due before next class
• Online forums
• One most interesting thing you learned about agile from today
• Weekly summary
• Review today’s lecture and summarize
• Homework Problem #5

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